


tastes like circuits and failure, but you'll be forgiven

by imperfectkreis



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Hand Jobs, M/M, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:09:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectkreis/pseuds/imperfectkreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's the word? Simulacrum? More real than real. Truth in its own right, not a mere illusion. Someone old and dead said that. That's what this is. A life of screens, machines, polymer, and desire. The mesh of him and Jack.</p><p>Jack uses Rhys' arm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tastes like circuits and failure, but you'll be forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> This story is also available in Russian [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/3796363) translated by Jerichon. I think this is massively cool hah.

He thinks of it as a dream that he can't wake up from. A solid slithering through his marrow. But it's not real. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Dreams are real too.

Rhys doesn't tell anyone. Keeps it to himself that Handsome Jack, or something approaching him, swims inside him. He imagines his insides like a gooey soup. And Jack is one of the ingredients in the boiling pot.

Handsome Jack promises to make him better than he is. More feared. Rhys doesn't tell Jack that he's maybe a little afraid. Instead he tells Sasha to be quiet, he can't focus. He just needs more time to make sense of the hack. But he can do it, he's sure.

(He's not sure. But he's sure of Handsome Jack and his survival instinct. So even if Rhys fucks up, Jack will catch him. He's got no choice. Preservation.)

After they're finished swiping the files, they end up back in the van. Rhys thinks maybe he likes the wind, the way it feels moving through his hair, but he doesn't like Pandora. Sometimes he'll smile at Vaughn, because this is a great adventure. But Rhys wasn't meant for the dirt and the sun and the flickers of starlight. He was made to sit in the constellations.

He tells the others he needs some air. Fiona says he should try and not get himself killed. The best way to do that is to stay in the damn van. Rhys doesn't listen. Says he wants to feel the wind. It's all rushing by really fast.

His shoes, the ones he landed on Pandora with, are long gone. He's wearing some shoddy shit he took off a dead townie. But those shoes he landed with, well, they were about the most expensive thing he'd ever bought. Now he kind of misses them. Really misses them.

Fiona's right, it pains him to admit. That if he goes too far, something will get him. It could be a pack of skags or raiders, or even the damn breeze he keeps going on about. But something will get him.

So, instead of wandering, he hoists himself up onto the roof of the van. Curling his long legs into the fold of his arms, he looks out across the planet.

There's nothing about this moment worth saving.

"Hey, kiddo. Rhysie." Jack flickers in. To taunt, probably, because there's nothing Rhys needs help with. And there's nothing that's threatening his physical safety either. Unless there is? Shit. Rhys checks behind his back.

"What do you want?" Rhys tries to lean back against the roof of the van, but ends up just smashing his head against it. He tries not to let the water fill his eyes, because that just makes him look weak. But it hurts.

"Just checking in with my meat-keeper. Hm, wait. That doesn't sound right. I meant like, a trapper-keeper, you know those? But you're made out of meat. But I still fit inside you. Needs more work." Jack puts his fingers to his chin.

Rhys groans, "I don't think I like being compared to a binder."

"A binder full of organs! And me. Don't forget about me. You’re full of me." Jack looks awfully proud of himself. 

Rhys figures being a binder full of organs is marginally better than a meat-keeper. No, they're both gross. And perverse. Jack fits inside.

"Someone is thinking naughty thoughts," Jack smirks.

Rhys could just about bury himself in the sand. But he doesn't want to, because he's already made up his mind, he's not staying here, on this dying world.

"That's the reason why, right? Why you haven't told your buddy, or the pretty ladies, about me? Don't want to divide my attention? I see how it is."

Handsome Jack’ hologram flickers out. But he doesn't go away. If anything, the press of his presence is more acute, like fresh metals in Rhys' mouth. Like the taste of blood and sour candies. Rhys lets himself wonder with the real Jack tasted like, what his lips felt like. There's no use hiding. Jack would find those thoughts anyway.

"Don't wonder about him, about me, I'm right here, baby."

The voice is a waterfall in his ears. It doesn't start or stop, just falls indefinitely. 

"I'll have you know I was, am, good. Very good. I'd chew you up, spit you out. Make you love it, the taste of copper on your tongue, cause I'd bite you good, baby. Now give me control."

Rhys lolls his head to one side, his nose touching against the van's metal roof. He'll be vulnerable if he does this. He needs to stop doing this. He trusts a man he shouldn't. Because he wants to be powerful, he wants to be feared. He wants that beautiful false star in the sky to be his. And Jack can take him there.

"Good boy, good. Now listen here, kiddo. Tell me, do you think about my cock on your lips too, or just my mouth?"

Rhys moves his lips out of habit, but no sound comes out.

"You already know, asshole."

"You should still tell me. I like hearing it."

"Yeah. I think about, about your cock."

"In your mouth?"

"Yes." Rhys is getting hard, bit by bit. He's not fighting it exactly, just delaying. It's a tactic. Part of a longer strategy.

"It is, was, big you know? Plenty thick to stretch your mouth. But pretty as you are, I bet you've had lots of nice cocks in your mouth. Mine'd be better, though."

Rhys parts his lips, just a little.

"Maybe it's good you never got mine. It'd wreck you for anyone else. Still, you'd make a pretty fucking picture, on your knees, your mouth open wide. Yeah, fuck yeah."

"Jack," he doesn't mean to say it. But his pants are too tight and the back of his neck is sweating. It's making his hair damp. He wants to wick it away, but he doesn't dare move.

"So, Rhysie, thought of my cock on other explorations too? Or just giving it the lollipop treatment? Lapping it like hard candy, eh?"

"You already know."

Jack's voice is predatory. With the flash of it, Rhys remembers what a dangerous situation this is. The peril he's courting between his synapses. But Jack can read that too. Well as he can read everything else.

"Not gonna hurt you, kiddo. Can't, even if I want to. Even if you want me to."

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"I think about your cock, in other places."

Jack groans. Rhys isn't really sure how or why, because his Handsome Jack isn't tethered to hormones or inappropriate erections like he is. He's just an AI with a smart mouth, chilling voice, murderous streak. He'd hurt Rhys if he could. If he wanted. If they wanted.

"Talk about ruining you. Fuck me. No, fuck you! Ha! You'd be so stretched out and full of me. Let me tell you, I've been thinking of those legs of yours, a lot. I like em short and I like em tall too. Like the idea of your legs wrapped around my waist best of all. At least, this week."

Rhys' arm starts moving, just lazy patterns over his shirt, down to the front of his slacks. He tries not to think of the arm as part of him. But it's weird, right? When he first augmented, it took some time, figuring out the depths and everything, without nerves and veins to guide him. Now he's got to undo all that thinking, reset himself so Jack can work through him.

"Tell me, baby, are you tight?"

"Yes." The whisper of Rhys' voice is already too loud. Shouldn't have actually said it.

Jack works open his fly, pulling out Rhys' cock. It's pretty good, at least, Rhys has always thought so. He hasn't gotten much in the way of complaints, gotten plenty of compliments. And it looks good in his metal hand, soft-skinned and pink against the darker metal.

Jack just won't shut up. Not while he's stroking Rhys with a measured pace. "Yeah, you look like just the type. Ridden hard but good as new the next day, what, with those next-to-nothing hips of yours. You'd look real pretty bouncing on my cock. And I'd look good pressed between your thighs."

When Rhys masturbates, it's normally with his fleshed hand. Because it's warm and soft and he can get moisture on it without having to fastidiously clean it afterwards. But the click of his own joints under Jack's control is driving him up the wall. It's making his toes curl in his shitty shoes and his neck feels like that waterfall and he's got his eyes screwed so tightly shut he's seeing stars.

"We're going to make a great team, kiddo. Just you, and me. And maybe, just maybe, when we, I, get my company back, I'll have a surprise for you, for us."

He comes on that last syllable, on that 'us.' It fucking melts in his mouth as cum runs over his casing, into his pants. He's got to keep the whine down, but Jack is telling him he wants to hear it. So when the day comes again when he's flesh and borrowed bone and not a pile of 1s and 0s he'll know what Rhys felt like vibrating on his eardrums.

Jack takes Rhys' fingers, sticks them in his mouth. Darting out with his tongue, Rhys licks away his sticky, bitter cum. There's that metal taste in his mouth again.

What's the word? Simulacrum? More real than real. Truth in its own right, not a mere illusion. Someone old and dead said that. That's what this is. A life of screens, machines, polymer, and desire. The mesh of him and Jack.

"Just you wait, I'm going to rock your world, baby."

And, like that, Jack is gone. Rhys can't touch up against him anymore.

He groans, pushing himself up on his palms. Tucking his soft cock back into his pants, he sighs again at the stain. Great, just great.

Sasha doesn't mention it, if she even notices. Oh boy, yeah, she must notice. It's obvious. But instead of asking about it, she rolls her eyes, turns away. It's another ten minutes until she speaks, looking up from the bills she's been counting over and over, like she's expecting them to multiply in her hands.

"Are you sure there's not something you want to tell me?" she asks for the hundredth time.

There's a flicker in his throat. A burst of bravado. "I've got a plan." He doesn't. Just the taste of old coins.


End file.
